So it occurred to me a good while ago that if I was ever going to be a Polish flames of war player I would never be able to take myself seriously unless I had sizeable options to fight from the back of a horse and over time this thought came to dominate my mind…
I decided that having spent at least a years graft knocking a Piechoty army (and all its variables) into shape I just had to go and do it again and as the Black Brigade were well known for having steeds with wheels I decided that it would just have to be a Polish Cavalry force…and I opted (as I believe I mentioned in my premature Polish Cavalry post) for the 19th Volhynian Uhlans who took such a central part in the Polish victory of the Battle of Mokra on 1st September 1939.
As with my Piechoty I have decided to get everything I need to cover all options BUT this time I would need a lot less than I did with my Piechoty because:
i) Polish Cavalry are expensive in points so you don’t need to buy so many figures
ii) They don’t have a massive amount of variety in what they can field… so you don’t need to buy so many figures
iii) Most of the vehicles that are required by the Cavalry I have already bought and painted up.. so I don’t need to buy so many ‘other’ figures! 😀
As I see the majority of my Cavalry fighting on foot the mounted elements were relatively limited so I limited myself to the Regimental Commander (being used as a Company commander), a platoon of Tzcankas and two platoons of mounted Uhlans of a single section each.
The complete mounted elements of the Pulk Kawaleria
The complete mounted elements of the Pulk Kawaleria (or Cavalry Regiment for those who don’t speak Polish)
…and again, all of the cavalry’s mounted elements…. seen from the side this time!
So going into a little more detail we’ll start with some better shots of the Regimental Commander who is accompanied with the Regimental Banner Bearer whilst his 2iC is accompanied by the Bugler mounted on his grey charger!
After the commanders of these titans of Polish military come the actual coal face troops themselves. The troops that charged tanks with lances (or not as the case may be) and actually one Brigade which stopped two entire German Divisions for a day.
The troops:
A Cavalry platoon with the Commander and protection section on the left with the platoons single section along with its Anti Tank rifle team arrayed to the right
Each platoon of cavalry was led by a platoon commander with a protection section. Seen here are the elements with my hand made pennants. We can see that the standard pennant for the 19th was a white and blue pennant whilst the 1st company command elements carried the same pennant with a red box on the inside edge
Another view of the Platoon Command
A closer look at the platoon commander with an opportunity
to take a closer look at the 1st Company command pennant
A better look at the make up of a mounted section. We can see the four Uhlan bases with one lance per base (which follows the 25% of troops issued with lances in 1939) and the small anti tank rifle team which accompanies each section.
A top down look at the complete platoon which is really just an excuse to look at the bases 😀
A closer look at a couple of the Uhlan’s bases!
One of the attached Anti Tank rifle teams. You can see the Anti tank rifle (wz.35 Ur) slung across the back here, barrel down as they were actually carried
A better look at the wz.35 Ur across the Uhlans back. This is an AT Rifle that was hacked off of a sniping figure. Polished up and strapped to the guys back. Looks good enough for what I wanted!
Last but not least, after the actual mounted infantry which is the bread and butter of Polish mounted troops comes one of the more interested troop types… the Tzcankas
From the time of World War 1 heavy machine guns were carried in carriages pulled by horse teams which enabled heavy support to keep up with the fast moving troops that were so common on the Eastern front.
Poland retained the idea until the fall of Poland in October 1939.
The full tzcanka platoon of 4 tzcankas
A look at the rear of the tzcanka… the business end!
A front view of the tzcanka showing the three horse team that they used.
A rear view of the tzcanka platoon.
So there we have it. All of the mounted elements are now complete and I’m already working on the dismounted elements starting with the dismounted infantry and horse holders. I’ll do a post on them as soon as possible and then all I will need to do to complete my Pulk Kawaleria force is a platoon of anti tank guns and a battery of field guns.
Then… finally… I will do my 10BK! (next year maybe 😀 )
Long Live Poland!
